2. Subject of sociology.
Before reading the following definition of sociology try to remember whether you have ever met this term before. What life situations were related to this term? Results of different polls, rating of political leaders, messages from parliament social services and independent sociological centers - these and many other spheres of applying of the term "sociology" give us slight idea of the science that studies a real life of society, i.e. social world, social reality. As we meet these notions we imagine to some extend that social world and social reality are phenomena that can be seen, understood and learned. Social reality is created in the process of social interaction of subjects; it is a result of their consciousness and vital activity in certain restricted territory and time (historical) space. It can be traced in humans' behavior, in the character of their value orientations, in forms of life organization, in their role behavior. Social reality has subjective and objective indices, for instance labor division, national and demographic communities.
As far as levels of interaction can be rather different, levels of social reality and social life will also differ. We can speak of social world of person, group, society, world society. Very often the difference between these social worlds can be rather striking. For instance there can be poor people in an economically successful society or people with a very low cultural level in high cultured society.
Culture, as a system of values, social life norms, behavior patterns, language, character of communications, traditions and cults, material culture, etc., can serve as a generalized index of social reality.
The study of social life is cognition of the world that we live in. This moves us to the idea that a person plays the most important role in the world creation in which he wants to live and which will be inherited by his ancestors. If we want to leave this world to our children we should study it constantly and remove the obstacles that harness its progress. Sociology fulfills this function to great extend.
The word "sociology" originates from Latin word "societas", meaning society, and a Greek word "logos", meaning word, doctrine, teaching. Sociology in the widest meaning of the word is a science about laws of formation, functioning and development of society in general, social relationships and social communities. Sociology can also be defined as a scientific study of society and social relationships. As any other science sociology has its object and subject of study. Object comprises definite part of reality that is studied by sociology and subject is an aspect, position, side from which the object is viewed.
Object of sociology is a social reality, i.e. life of society. Subject of sociology comprises peculiarities, sides, relationships and processes of given reality or social life. What is the procedure of defining the fragments of social reality that are to be taken as an object of social research? How is the subject of investigation defined? A problematic situation in the society is the orientation for such choice. Here we have to investigate the character of contradiction, conditions that caused it to find way out of the difficult situation. A problematic situation creates subject of sociological investigation and localization of problematic situation serves as a basis for distinguishing of the object of sociological investigation.
As far as problematic situations can bear different character, universal (for all the society, mankind), private (for a large social group, for instance the youth, women, etc.) or unitary (for collective body of an enterprise) we distinguish several levels that form structure of sociological system of knowledge. It can be presented like this:
First level: General sociological theory.
Second level: Special sociological theories: 1. Theories that study separate communities: (a) sociology of a city, (b) sociology of a village, (c) ethnosociology, etc.
Theories that study vital activity of communities in separate spheres: (a) sociology of labor, (b) economical sociology, (c) sociology of education, etc.
Theories that study separate elements of society: (a) sociology of activity, (b) sociology of organization, (c) sociology of social control, etc.
Third level: Theory, methodology and technique of concrete-sociological (empirical) investigations.